He was caught on film making the salute at the end of his performance at Dimebash 2016, a festival held in Hollywood in tribute to the late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

In the days following the incident, which you can see in the video below, Anselmo has been accused of racism and has been associated with white power groups.

Anselmo recently addressed the controversy in a comment on the above video, writing, “Ok folks, I’ll own this one, but dammit, I was joking, and the ‘inside joke of the night’ was because we were drinking fucking white wine. Some of y’all need to thicken up your skin. There’s plenty of fuckers to pick on with a more realistic agenda. I fucking love everyone, I fucking loathe everyone, and that’s that. No apologies from me.”

Machine Head frontman Rob Flynn yesterday addressed the story in a video, calling Anselmo a “bully” and saying, “I was there, and I could tell you for a fact that there wasn’t a chardonnay or a pinot grigio in sight backstage. In fact, the only thing you were drinking, Phil Anselmo, was Becks German beer. Maybe that’s where the joke came from.”

In Anselmo’s video, uploaded to YouTube today (January 30), he says, “Philip H Anselmo here, and I’m here to basically respond to all the heat I’ve been getting that I deserve completely. I was at the Dimebash and it was extremely late at night, there was heavy-duty talk between myself and those who love Dime. Heavy emotions were flowing, jokes were made backstage, that transpired upon the stage, and it was ugly, it was uncalled for, and anyone who knows me and my true nature knows that I don’t believe in any of that.

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“I don’t want to be part of any group,” he continued, “I’m an individual and I am a thousand percent apologetic to anyone that took offence to what I said, because you should have taken offence to what I said. And I am so sorry. I hope you give me another chance… I love all of you. Anyone who knows me knows that I love all of you. Bless you.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gShmJV2BSr0